Headlines

Erik Wemple

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell botches NRA slam

Great confusion clouds Mitchell’s line of inquiry. She is sticking up for a long-standing tradition of Beltway media etiquette and restraint — that of leaving intact the privacy of the president’s offspring. That’s a good tradition.

And it’s also one that’s compromised not at all by the NRA promotion. That presidential children get armed protection invades their privacy about as much as reporting that they reside at the White House.

Now, if Mitchell instead had specified that she was addressing the prudence, the political appeal and the effectiveness of rolling the president’s kids into a promotion on gun rights, perhaps her segment would have come unstuck.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

The President has people who are hired to protect him with guns.
The President has people who are hired to shop for his groceries and clothes.
The President has people who are hired to cook his dinner.
The president has people who are hired to clean his home.

I do my own shopping, cleaning, and cooking, why can I not do my own protecting?

Now, if Mitchell instead had specified that she was addressing the prudence, the political appeal and the effectiveness of rolling the president’s kids into a promotion on gun rights, perhaps her segment would have come unstuck.

That argument might have held water had Jugears not used a bunch of children as props in his rant this morning. If he can us children as propaganda elements, the NRA is perfectly justified in pointing out how Obama has no security concerns for his family while normal citizens do not have the same benefits.

All three of Brett Baier’s Special Report panel (Stephen Hayes, Juan Williams, and Krauthammer) dumped on the NRA for its ad. Did they see the same ad I saw? Obama’s kids are unnamed and not pictured. I think the NRA should have distinguished Secret Service protection (who objects?) from the protection provided by the school that they attend. Leaving aside the Secret Service protection for Obama’s kids, doesn’t that school have something like 11 people with guns working there? That’s what I would have highlighted.

I usually like Hayes and Krauthammer, but they should have simply put Juan Williams masks on before delivering their comments. For his part, Juan called it a “vile ad.” WTF? You’d have thought that the NRA had given out the personal cellphone numbers, travel routes, and daily schedules for Obama’s kids.

That said, the NRA probably should have been more general and punched at all elites who send their kids to guarded schools.

That said, the NRA probably should have been more general and punched at all elites who send their kids to guarded schools.

BuckeyeSam on January 17, 2013 at 4:57 AM

Agreed. Because children of POTUS are always targets of random loons (which is why the Bush twins, early in his first term, enraged Secret Service Agents by outwitting them–they were too young to realize that it was for their own protection).

I love how it was alright and even hip to call president Bush chimpy, Bushitler, dumb and all kinds of other things. I love how it was open season on the first lady and her children but it is not okay to insult BO or even mention his family. It’s really pathetic but, what is worse is that the conservatives and republicans buy into the same idea. The repubs will never win as long as they allow the boot of liberalism to be on their necks.
I don’t blame the media in the least for getting upset because BO is a cult leader and the media are his slobbering followers.

It’s the President who is using children as props! It’s the whole left that are standing on the graves of children!

Oh, right… all President’s children have SS protection. We shouldn’t expect our children to be under the kinds of threats the President’s children might be…. then why the freak are we having a discussion about gun control? Because we had a freaking school shooting!

I think the ad is fine, but maybe out of date already. One of Obama’s executive orders is to help schools hire police if they want to. It’s both hilarious and disgusting that the media and Dems (BIRM) had full on conniptions over the notion of police! with guns! in schools when the NRA proposed it, but it’s just fine if Obama proposes it.

And then Krauthammer moans and whines when conservatives lose, because he, like other media mouthpieces, refuses to engage in the kind of aggressive rhetoric that the Left uses so effectively to demonize the Right.